Implementing "Page loading...Please wait"

I am working on a application built using the Spring & Hibernate framework.

I need to implement "page loading... please wait" page once the submit button is clicked on the search page. The application takes time to get all the records & displays the data in search result page .

I have not come across any such functionality developed using the spring framework when I googled. As the spring framework works on request / response cycle, Does the conventional way of data processing allow me to implement "page loading.. please wait" functionlity" ?

Do I need to use AJAX for implenting the "page loading.. please wait" functionlity" ?